Summer Rhythms

This week I've been working large, doing some really exciting action painting. I've been looking at Pollock a lot, researching in books and watching videos, and I'm working with some of his premises and trying to make them into my own. One of the best parts of working in this way is the quality of mark I'm able to make. I can directly transfer the energy and action of my body into the canvas. I am leaving a lot to chance and trying not to overly control the paint. I simply think about the rhythm of the ocean while I paint....

Another detail....
A detail of the large painting
               LARGE!
                       Matt likes art. 
A large 14' by 3.5' horizontal canvas...I painted this on the floor and moved it to the wall afterwards. It isn't finished yet, and now I'm going to go in with smaller brushes and charcoal instead of just throwing paint and paint washes. 
I painted this one yesterday, but I was rather frustrated with how it came out, so I scraped off all the paint and came up with this painting below...really cool effects....
    The aftermath of  frustrated
This is a smaller drip painting. I tried to let 

go and lose control on this one...all I thought 

about was the idea of waves. 
A detail
A detail of the next drip painting
This is the first smaller drip painting I tried

and it feels a bit too controlled for my liking...

again, here I was using house paint. I suspended

myself from several chairs and worked above the 

canvas.

Pollock revisited?

A new technique

On friday I started working in a completely different way...I decided to try drip painting with my house paints on Plexiglas. What ended up happening was something I could never have predicted...the paint began to move and mix on its own on the surface of the plexi. The colors began to morph and swirl, marbling of their own accord. So, I let them do it, and only pushed things in particular directions when it seemed absolutely necessary.  I let them sit over the weekend and they continued to change. This process perfectly reflects on the qualities I am trying to capture; the paint, much like ocean water itself, was impossible to contain or control once it gained momentum. 

The first attempt...here I went for a more literal

landscape. I love how the rocks and the wave here

are becoming one entity. I was trying to control 

the paint here a little too much, but this painting

opened the door. 
Detail of the wave on rocks. This reminds me of Katsushika Hokusai's Great Wave

Here is the painting I did today and a detail of the

marbling effect of the house paint. The end 

product will look nothing like this, I'm sure,

but here it is right after I finished with it.

This is my favorite of the three, here I really 

relinquished control and let the paint work...

Influences

This summer I've spent a lot of my time looking through art books researching the work done here on Maine's coast. It's been a wonderful process, and I wanted to share some of my favorite artists...these are some of the artists I think of when I paint.

Winslow Homer
Rockwell Kent
Edward Hopper
Childe Hassam
Winslow Homer (again)

This is the beach at Maren's house near Mount Desert Island, Matt and I stayed there for a week in early July and it was FABULOUS. Maren's family was so great for having us. This painting comes from three photos I took on the beach outside their cottage at low tide. I stitched them together with photoshop, but for some reason that image isn't downloading to the blog.

This is a very long canvas, about 42" and 14" high. My roommate Alexi thinks I should have added in dripping watches to make it look more like the work of Dali, haha. 

Tomorrow I have my Fellowship presentation out at the Coastal Studies center, so wish me luck! I'm the only artist presenting tomorrow, everyone else did science research this summer, so it should be an interesting crowd. 

Large and small work

I finished this one today, it's 16 x 24 inches

...Matt, Kristina, Tom, Shem and I went out 

to the Bowdoin sailing dock last night for dinner.

  There I experienced one of the finest Maine 

sunsets of my life, and I got very

camera happy. This painting is the result of one of my

many photographs from the evening...

It was such a singularly wonderful night. 

Sorry for the bad quality photo...there was a lot of medium on this painting and it got sort of reflective. Boo. 

This one is actually 4 feet by 5 feet. I painted this with house paint, building up the canvas with thin layers of the pre-mixed paint. It was really fun to paint, but I don't think that this photo does it justice. 

Das Photo

A selection of photos from the summer....I will add more later. 

View of scenic Camden from Mount Battie
Mount Battie (the weather is just fabulous, no?)
Rocks out at Land's End
View at Land's End (at 6:30 am)
Looking towards Giant Steps

Lobstah boat!

More rocks
Professor Dickenson searching for 

baby lobsters at Land's End
Lobstah buoys
Stoic couple at the Old Port Festival
I love how this woman resembles her dog....

....or is it that the dog resembles the woman....
My photogenic roommates enjoying Old Port
The lovely Emily 
Old Port Festival
Popham at low tide
A man exploring the island off of Popham
Wave explosion!
Popham
Kat looking out at the ocean
More Popham at low tide

Small child (where are her parents?)

Sand after the tide has gone out....I love the patterns
The family I ended up painting

Sand flats

Lone figure at Popham